Showing results by publisher "Crossroad Press" in All Categories

The antique telephone sat in the darkness in the attic. Dust and cobwebs obscured its once gleaming surface. Wires hung limply from its rusted innards. It should have been nothing more than an interesting piece of junk. Except that sometimes, late at night, the occupants of the hotel rooms below swore they heard it ringing....

Based on the Kinsey reports, in which Dr. Alfred Kinsey conducted interviews with thousands of men and women on their sexual habits, Irving Wallace's blockbuster novel The Chapman Report concerns the interviewing of a number of society ladies from a community in California known only as "The Briars". These interviews, intended to extract data for a book on the sexual habits of married women, lead the listener on a trail through the lives and loves of several very different women, and the men in their lives.

Licensed practical nurse Anne Capute administered a fatal dose of morphine to a dying patient, Norma Leanues. Anne claimed she was following common practice at Morton General, with a verbal approval by Dr. Hillier, to administer unrestricted doses of morphine as a humane antidote to the unbearable suffering of terminal cases.

A new husband and a new home, what more could a newlywed want? Unfortunately, home is an isolated neglected farm house near an encroaching woods. And each day Rachel's husband grows quieter and more introspective. Worse, she cannot ignore the menacing woods she sees from the porch windows. They are the hiding place for abandoned children. But are they truly children and, if not, what are they?

Little Selene was bored. And then came the mysterious Toyman, carrying a very special toybox, filled with wonders and terrors beyond imagination. As Selene peered into the toybox, the stories tumbled out: a quiet little girl whose horrible secret bursts forth at a Halloween party... a doll made of corn that hides a very nasty surprise... a depraved celebration for the last vampire... All of these and many more awaited Selend - and now they wait for you - inside the toybox. Go ahead, open it, if you dare.

Alo Nudger, the St. Louis ex-cop is both the most normal of all fictional private eyes and the most surprising. He's got an uncertain stomach he doses with nonstop antacids; he doesn't like guns or violence; and since he doesn't feel any special affinity for what he does, from nosing into people's dirty laundry to confronting perps with the consequences of their misdeeds, and makes more than his share of mistakes, it's only natural that his business cards identify him in typographical error as a private defective.

"My life changed overnight. I was driving home from a gig when a tramp stepped out in front of my car. I killed him. I know I did. But no-one believed me. The medical staff at the hospital insisted he was the result of some sort of hallucination because trauma sustained during the accident. I tried to convince them otherwise, but the more I protested, the more obvious it became to them that I had damaged more than just my ribs in the crash, so I started to lie to keep them happy."

Tangier, a sweeping novel of romance and intrigue set in a fabled North African resort, may remind readers of the Alexandria Quartet. In this book Tangier is more than just a place; it is a city of unholy loves. Titled Europeans, Moroccan hustlers, aging former Nazis, decadents of every sort play out their rituals, competing for stunning lovers and social power. Their schemes and passions are a subject of fascination to the hero of the book, a brilliant young police inspector.

They came into the world as one - inseparably tied together at their chests - yet they were two. They became world celebrities, American citizens, married two native-born Southern sisters, and between them fathered 21 children, while acquiring respectable status as landowners, famers, slave owners, and pillars of their local community. "They" were the famous, the first, the original Siamese Twins, Chang and Eng.

Meet "Sweetwater" and "Sundance" — two of the most outrageous and daring jet jockeys ever to sit behind the controls of an F-14. Assigned to the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, these boys are living life to the fullest: harassing Russian recon planes...raising hell on shore leave...testing the limits of their jets, their commanding officers, and their own reputations as the Navy's best.

Dead Lines is about a young writer and artist type named Jack Rowan, who lives in NYC and whose career never took off. His life is in the toilet. He's broken up with his girlfriend and is crashing on the couch in the loft of his more successful photographer friend, Glen, while Glen is off in LA on a shoot.

By the wonder of reverse tachyon technology, we have been able to retrieve a series of essays on the History of the United States which was published (or will be published) in the year 2190 AD. The author, Hugo Gottfried, was (will be) the custodian of the abandoned research library on Fifth Avenue in New York City. As he began in the middle of the 22nd century to read the old books down in the dark and dusty nether recesses of the crumbling old building, he slowly came to a startling realization.

Lizzie Randall, the preacher's daughter, is murdered. The men of the west Texas town are set on lynching Paco Morales, a Mexican teenager who happened to be in the vicinity at the time. No proof, but, after all, he is only a Mexican. Reason and/or conscience work on most of the would-be lynchers, so that, in the end justice is served. The list of suspects grows to include almost everyone in the story, thus providing an agreeable tangle of clues.

In the summer of 1975, a group of young men known as "the boys" make their stab for freedom harvesting wild hemp, or marijuana, on the Kansas plains. Several are Vietnam vets, and all are somehow marked, at odds with their time. They see themselves as inheritors of the mythic West, like buffalo hunters in league with their captain, Frankie Sage. As long as they remain unarmed, their crime is counted only a misdemeanor. But a rival gang led by Valentine LaReese is prone to gunplay.

Karl Alexander had been an adrenaline junky for twenty five years. Whether flying Harriers in the Marines, piloting the shuttle for NASA, or as the chief astronaut for StrataCorp Space Flight his happiness was only found when he hit five Gs. But when a series of minor mishaps sends his ship crashing into the desert of an unknown country, Karl finds a new kind of adrenaline rush as he is swept into a raging torrent of the world at the edge of war. Spies, insurgents, secret police, and an infamous Saudi millionaire terrorist all threaten to make his next flight, his last....

Relentless, inhumanly cunning, a killer stalks the serene streets and elegant houses of the quiet Illinois suburb of Riverdale. The victims' skulls are shattered, their flesh torn and flayed. Hard on the killer's trail, a dedicated cop and a brilliant young doctor risk everything to run an elusive, insanely savage predator to ground. Their only clue - a beautiful girl, scarred body and soul by a past she can't escape. Their only hope - untangling the dark, terrifying secrets of that past before their quarry turns the tables and makes them the hunted.

After the loss of his wife and child in a plane crash, former NYC firefighter Sebastian Martin is nearing alcoholic oblivion when his brother offers him a last-chance job opportunity as an insurance fraud investigator. Despite his reservations, he soon discovers he has an instinct for the job. A move to Dallas, where he learns it's okay to be alive, proves to be his salvation. Investigating fraudulent claims for a dead child and another for a missing husband, in Honduras, leads him to murders, international car thieves, and torture at the hands of a former KGB agent.

It's a nice house on a country road. Jack and Erika Harris expect to be happy there. It doesn't matter that they're living in a deserted suburb where, years ago, murders and mutilations destroyed the residents. It doesn't matter...until those that caused the deaths come back - those that sprang from the earth. Those that need. Those that are not human. The Harris's nice house stands between them and what they must have. Nothing has ever mattered more.

The ancient conflict that has waged on Earth for eons between two rival groups of alien gods, one from the bright center of the galaxy and one from the dark abyss beyond, is finally nearing its end. A prophecy foretelling the birth of children of the bright gods, the Lightbringers, is fulfilled, and dark forces immediately set out to destroy them. Raised in secrecy on a mysterious isle by a group of magical women called the Circle of Swans, one of the children, Deykin, is believed to be safe until one fateful day when his world unravels.

After a night of heavy drinking, business traveler Bill Rowe wakes up in his Chicago hotel room with an epic hangover: pounding headache, memory loss, and a naked dead woman in his bed. Forced to go on the run, Bill must piece together the sequence of events during his alcohol blackout to prove his innocence. Pursued by mysterious assailants, he discovers he's been framed as part of an elaborate scheme to cover up a shocking secret.